Useless Coworkers Cause Hell For A Slave Who Doesn't Usually Work In Cafe

Hello, everyone! It's Stepford Snarker. Most people who don't know me well have me pegged for something akin to a Stepford wife; always smiling and cheerful and polite. Then, when people get to know me, they realize that I am incredibly snarky and sarcastic around those I am comfortable with. I just tend to act sweet and friendly with people I'm either obligated to be nice to or who I don't know well.

I am a cashier in a store that is part of a local family-owned chain. It's a Whole Foods-esque place that attracts customers who, for the most part, probably have not spent much time working retail, waiting tables, or anything along those lines. Thus, they often assume that those of us who work there are unintelligent, despite being within short driving range of two colleges and at least two private schools. Today, I would like to talk about my coworkers.

Coworkers... you have to love them or hate them. I love some of my coworkers; they're helpful and don't act too stupidly. And then there's the coworkers I dislike.

One of my coworkers is just plain frustrating. Let's call her Elsie. She's been working at this chain pretty much since it opened up. What amazes me is how much slacking off she gets away with. Now, I don't enjoy being there, but bills and graduate school don't pay for themselves. This woman manages to make herself as scarce as possible for as often as possible. Now, there's only about eight registers total, counting customer service, and the coffee bar, but typically only about 6-7 are in use at peak hours. In the morning, there's maybe about three registers open. If Elsie is working that shift, you can pretty much guarantee that she will make many trips to the bathroom and coffee bar, go chat with people in other parts of the store, and generally only do work when called to her register or when someone comes to her register and stands there until she rings them up. I don't know why management puts up with her nonsense, but I'm sure I'm not the only one fed up with her laziness.

Another of my coworkers has also become something of a frustration. Let's call her Sally. Sally's a generally nice person, but she can be pretty lazy. She typically works in the coffee bar part of the store. As a little bit of background information, this is where customers can get coffee, sodas, smoothies, teas, and such. Several of the store cashiers are trained to work in the coffee bar area, since it doubles as an express line (something I despise about it). I hate working there; people come in and expect Starbucks-type stuff from a place with only four flavors of coffee on the menu, one of which is changed on a daily basis.

Anyway, the other day, after being at work all of an hour, Sally decides that she is not feeling well and needs to go home. Now, my shift was not supposed to start for another three hours. However, one of the managers basically told me to get my butt into the coffee bar and take over. I headed over, grumbling and cursing the whole time. I got even angrier when I got there and saw that Sally had not bothered to make any coffee the whole time she was in the coffee bar (and the store had just opened; people were coming in wanting their coffee!), and that she had left a good-sized mess for me to clean up. I hurried to make some coffee and clean up the mess, still cursing to myself. One of my coworkers happened to overhear me and apparently thought it was the funniest thing ever to see me so steamed.

Later that day, my boyfriend, a fellow coworker, told me that she had said to him, "It was pretty funny to see Stepford Snarker embracing her inner bitch."

My response was, "If she didn't think I was a bitch before that, then she didn't know me that well."

I spent my shift running around like a chicken that had had its head cut off, trying to make smoothies, lattes, and hot chocolate for impatient customers. That, in addition to having to ring up customers too damned lazy to go to one of the regular registers. Did I mention that I hate working coffee bar? Honestly, if I wanted to sling coffee for idiotic jerks, I would have worked at Starbucks. (No offense meant to those decent people out there who go to Starbucks; all offense meant to the people who demand a flavor of coffee not available, want all sorts of customizations done at a grocery store coffee bar, and who get pissed at me because we don't have drink carriers since most people don't order enough hot chocolate for a small army.) When I went home that day, I just soaked in the tub and cried. I swear, if I didn't need the money, I would leave that place quicker than you can say, "Bite me!"

What a lazy bitch. And yes, I mean both of them. The day I had an asthma attack at the vet's office I finished the puppy crates. People just don't have a work ethic anymore and then you wonder why we have sites like this.

I'd say it's self-perpetuating. When the good workers get treated badly anyway, what motivation is there to be a good worker? It's easier to slack off- see Office Space "I work just hard enough not to get fired." It's still an ass move to push all the work onto your coworkers, though. It doesn't just disappear, after all.